About Interior Doors

Interior Doors by Homestead is located in Vickery,
Ohio and specializes in nationwide retail sales of wood exterior
and interior doors and hardwood moldings. We offer nationwide
shipping of our fine hardwood products and regularly ship to
every state in the USA and Canada. We have shipped thousands
of doors jobsite-direct to hundreds of contractors and do-it-yourselfers. We take great care in crating and shipping our
doors and moldings to ensure they arrive at your jobsite in
sound condition.

Our skilled sales staff has many years of construction experience
to assist you with any technical, installation or design questions.
Browsing the information below should help you decide what type
of interior doors will be best suited for your project.

Stile and rail interior
doors are made from individual components that are
joined together with special woodworking joints and glues.
The mortise and tenon is considered one of the strongest
joints in interior door construction. Other methods of
joinery include dowels, cope and stick, lag bolts or some
combination of the same. Stile and rail doors usually have
either raised panels or flat panels depending on your taste.
The panels of a stile and rail door can be arranged in
an almost unlimited number of configurations with the traditional
raised 6-panel door pictured to the right being one of
the most popular.

Mortise and tenon joinery in stile
and rail interior door

Louvered doors are available
with standard slat 1-directional louvers or chevron louvers which
look the same from either side. Standard louvered doors have fixed
or movable wooden fins (often called slats or louvers) which permit
open ventilation while preserving privacy and preventing the passage
of light to the interior. Standard louvered doors usually have
relatively weak structures and are most commonly used for wardrobes
and drying rooms, where security is of less importance than good
ventilation. Doors incorporating chevron louvers are considered
stronger and are used in higher end construction. Louvers can be
used with flush doors or stile and rail doors.

False louver doors have
the same look as venting louver doors but do not have air spaces
between the louvers. False louver doors are used when you have
doors that need greater soundproofing but still want the louvered
appearance. Bedroom entry doors would be a good example of where
a false louver door would be used.

Standard 1-directional slat type louvers

Chevron louver

False louver

Double doors are 2 single swing doors
hung together in the same jamb with both opening from the middle.
Double doors for closets usually have ball catches or roller catches
installed in the tops of the doors to hold them shut (see photo
below).
Dummy knobs are used on double doors with ball or roller catches
and should not be prepped for a conventional lockset.

Double doors going into a bedroom or office where privacy is
desired will require a conventional lockprep on the active door.
You must determine which door will be used the most and this will
become the active side. The passive side is secured with
a flush bolt into the top jamb. This will keep the passive
door stationary and locked in place which gives the active door
something to latch into. The flush bolt can easily be unlatched
to allow for full opening of both doors. The passive door will
also need to have a flush or t-astragal secured to the outer stile.
This astragal gives the active door something to close against
when security is desired.

Ball catches

Roller catches

Flush bolt

Pocket doors slide on rails and disappear
inside a wall rather than swinging on hinges. There is nothing
special about the door itself and most any door can be installed
as a pocket door. The pocket door hardware and pocket door frame
is what distinguishes this type of door from others. Rollers are
fastened to the top of the door slab. They slide on a metal track
that extends back into the wall the same width as the door. The
pocket frame is what creates the hollow cavity in the wall for
the door to slide into. In new constructions the pocket frame must
be installed before the drywall is applied to the walls in
the room. Pictured below is a Johnson #2700 pocket door frame for
doors 1-3/8" thick and 80" high with Johnson #2710 aluminum
track and rollers for doors up to 125 pounds.

Bifold interior doors consist of 2
door slabs hinged to each other and folding together like a book.
They are hung on a track with special bifold hardware. Two pairs
can be hung together to create a double bifold consisting of 4
door slabs with one pair folding to the left and one to the right.
Wood is the most common material, and doors may also be metal or
glass. Bi-fold doors are most commonly made for closets, but may
also be used as units between rooms. Pictured below is Johnson
#1825 bifold hardware which can be used for residential duty doors
up to 1-3/8" thick and up to 35 pounds per panel or 70 pounds
per pair.

Johnson 1825 bifold hardware

Bottom pivot bracket

Bottom pivot

Top pivot

Top pivot socket

Track stop

Bypass sliding interior doors are
2 doors that slide past one another. The doors can slide
from each direction on an overhead track. They are most commonly
used in closets. The biggest drawback to bypass sliding doors is
that only one side of the closet can be accessed at a time. The
doors in a bypass unit will overlap slightly, in order not to have
a gap between them. Pictured below is Johnson 138F sliding door
hardware which can be used with 1-3/8" thick doors up to 200
pounds.